Amputated finger doesn't stop Heat's Green from making his point

So how do you make a point about perseverance to a group of campers mere days away from the end of their summer vacation?

You put all nine of your fingers in the air and tell them about the challenge that has delivered you to this latest NBA stop, with the Miami Heat.

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Gerald Green not only arrived to sign autographs during the final week of the Heat's youth basketball camp Thursday at Miami-Dade College's Kendall Campus, he also delivered a message of inspiration to those attending the program directed by Heat broadcaster Tony Fiorentino.

For years, it was a subject too personal, too hurtful for the athletic 6-foot-8 swingman to discuss, of how, when attempting to dunk as a sixth-grader while wearing his mother's class ring, he caught the ring finger of his right hand on a nail in a makeshift rim in a doorway.

He would later describe the injury as something out of "Terminator 2," noting, "It was nothing but white bone." Tendons? Gone. Ligaments? Gone. And, soon, most of the finger gone, as well, amputation the solution.

Green said for years he would attempt to hide the finger, classmates at those ages looking for moments to tease. And then, when selected in the first round of the 2005 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics, came a moment of truth.

"If you go back and look at the David Stern tape," he said during a private moment Thursday about meeting the NBA commissioner, "when I go shake his hand I have my right hand in my pocket. He tells me, 'Take your hand out of your pocket.'

"I always have been a little shy about that. But I think it's getting better once I get older. I just want to be able to inspire people with that."

Although unable to palm the ball in his right hand, Green has stood for a decade as one of the NBA's premier dunkers, wnining the dunking contest during All-Star Weekend in 2007 and finishing as runner-up in 2008. He recently traveled to Guam, where he offered a dunking exhibition, and then offered another one Thursday for the assembled youth.

Basketball has helped melt away what he initially said was embarrassment.

"I think what really hurt me were the aftereffects," he said, "the getting made fun of, scared to talk about it because I was so ashamed of it, or always hiding my hand in my pocket.

"That was the thing that I had to go through. And as a little kid, obviously kids like to make fun of you because you have this or that. It was something I went through. But it taught me to be who I am today."

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That had him Thursday addressing why he is different, and telling those in front of him why no one should be ashamed of being different.

"I never used to be able to talk about it," he said. "As you get older, you get older. But five, six years ago, I wouldn't have been able to have this conversation with you. I wouldn't be able to have to this conversation. I wouldn't be able to have it. I just couldn't talk about it."

Through it all, Green has made himself a valued commodity during several of his NBA stops, including a breakout season two years ago with the Phoenix Suns, the team he left this offseason.

But that's not to say he doesn't wonder how it could have been different if not for his incident.

"Not a day that goes by I don't think about having my finger," he said. "Even early in my career, when I first got drafted out of high school, I was still ashamed about it."

Now, if anything, it's about trying to shake the reputation of being defined by his dunking, a history that includes beating out current Heat teammate Josh McRoberts for the dunking championship at the 2005 McDonald's All-American Game.

"It's probably going to be hard to really shake," he said. "Everybody always wants to label me that. I just got to try to go out there and let my game speak for itself."

iwinderman@tribpub.com. Follow him at twitter.com/iraheatbeat or facebook.com/ira.winderman